


the sands of time

by doubletan



Category: Chinese Actor RPF, Real Person Fiction, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Android!Wang Yibo, Androids, Confessions, Fluff, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Mutual Pining, Plot Twists, Post-Apocalypse, angst maybe? depends on how you view it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:35:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25398520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doubletan/pseuds/doubletan
Summary: Mankind has lost the battle against nature. All life on Earth has been decimated completely.Decades later, Andriod W1Bo-805 receives a new mission: to track down the last surviving human on the planet.
Relationships: Wang Yi Bo/Xiao Zhan
Comments: 13
Kudos: 110





	the sands of time

**Author's Note:**

> this au is inspired by yibo's gq magazine story 
> 
> W1Bo-805 looks like [this](https://m.weibo.cn/detail/4527061215485415) from his gq magazine, while xz looks like [this](https://m.weibo.cn/detail/4525246403841237) from his bazaar shoot
> 
> to be fair, android isn't really an accurate term for W1Bo-805, but it is the closest term that can be used to describe him! you will find out the more you read on :D
> 
> 23/1/2021: did a quick edit of this fic (just some minor editing)

_They lay side by side, hands clasped tight together. They are so close that they can feel their breaths fanning across their cheeks._

_A tear slips out of Yi Bo's eye, trailing its way down his cheek and Xiao Zhan brushes it away with a trembling hand. Their eyes never once wavered from each other._

_A sharp crack sounds in the distance and screams cut through the air._

_Brilliant light spills over them._

* * *

The wind howled, sending sand and stone into W1Bo-805's face mercilessly. It did not faze him as he trudged forward through the rocky terrain. His coat billowed behind him, giving the impression of a grim reaper making his way through the desolate landscape.

But he was far from that.

He enlarged the map at the corner of his vision and eyed the blinking red circle that loomed closer with every step he took.

Metal structures jutted up from the ground, twisting up into the air like hands reaching upwards from hell in hopes of salvation. W1Bo-805 avoided them, stepping carefully away from debris and other unidentifiable objects that had been abandoned to nature.

He must have stumbled across one of the dome cities the humans had built long ago. They had constructed domes to protect themselves against the increasingly inhospitable climate as humans across the globe flocked towards the dome nearest to them in a bid for survival.

W1Bo-805 was one of many androids who had been created for the sole purpose of rescuing and transporting the humans that had not found their way to the domes or were unable to. To make interactions with the humans more pleasant, they were constructed with the facial structures and genes of humans deemed attractive.

Androids never met the humans whose genes they were made from, much less any of the humans living in the domes. They work strictly outside of them. Even when the androids were brought back to their respective domes for maintenance, they were sequestered into a remote section on the outskirts far away from the humans' living quarters. Their only interactions with humans were the engineers tasked to maintain them.

As the climate got harsher, it became impossible for any human to survive outside the domes. And so the androids were dispatched with new priorities: this time to find and retrieve whatever plants and animals that had not perished in an attempt to prevent as many species as possible from extinction.

But that had been decades ago. There was only so much the man-made domes could stand against the blistering heat of the sun.

All life on Earth had been decimated completely.

With no more need of him, W1Bo-805’s system had shut itself down. Yet just a few days ago, it had booted up on its own with a new mission and the familiar blinking red light that signaled human life on earth.

So here he was, making his way through the sandstorm.

He had considered the possibility that it might have just been a bug or an error in his system, but that was unlikely. His system had been down for decades, there was no reason why it would have made such an error if it had never been in use the entire time.

He looked to the far distance. The landscape had turned more volatile since the humans had gone out of existence. He could see nothing but a murky red haze that promised a perilous journey.

He plodded onwards through the dust and sand.

\---

_Yi Bo's breath puffs out in front of him_ _as_ _a cloud of fog. There is nothing but snow for miles. The cold bites into his skin even through the thick coat he has donned on, but it mattered little to him._

_Someone laughs, like the tinkling of a wind chime in a gentle breeze. He turns to see Xiao Zhan peering down at the slope in front of them, his snowboard under his feet. Yi Bo puts a gloved hand out to him and he takes it without hesitation._

_Xiao Zhan's eyes glitter with excitement. "You better not let me fall," he warns Yi Bo teasingly._

_Yi Bo tightens his grip on Xiao Zhan. "Never."_

_\---_

It was weeks of sand and grit before he reached his target.

He was in another city, or what used to be one. Even so, it was the most well-preserved city he had ever stepped foot in in his long journey across the globe. The roofs of some of the buildings could still be seen where the sand had not swallowed them entirely yet, but it would only be a matter of time before they disappear from view just like the rest.

He could make out the shape of a half-sunken building in the distance. It stood at a diagonal angle where the concrete had crumbled into the sand, leaving a few levels of broken windows that stared into the desolate landscape like gaping eyes.

He checked the map once more. The blinking red dot was located right above the building.

He walked around the perimeter. Finding an opening in one of the windows, he entered smoothly.

It was dark. W1Bo-805 switched on his night vision.

He was in an empty room. Rubble littered the floor and crackled under his feet when he stepped on them.

An open space stood in the opposite wall where a door used to had stood. He stepped past it and found himself in a long corridor that stretched out on both sides of him. More rooms were situated along the side where he came out from, indicated by the empty spaces where the absence of doors left them bared open for view.

He chose one of the corridors and continued forward. The further he walked, the softer the howl of the wind blowing mercilessly outside was until it finally descended entirely into silence. His footsteps echoed in the quiet hallway as he looked through each room only for all of them to turn up empty as well.

He stopped when he reached the end of the hallway. There was a staircase that led downwards.

He made his way down two flights of stairs and ended up in another hallway that was eerily similar to the one above.

If all the floors were the same, it would be more efficient to take the stairs all the way down to the lowest floor and venture up from there, W1Bo-805 thought. For if there was anything that lived in this building they would not live near the harsh wind that had shattered the thick glass of the windows completely with time; but at the lower levels where the windows might had still been protected and preserved by the sand.

Some parts of the stairs had crumbled away, and if it was not for his night vision he would have fallen multiple times. As he made his way down, he was met with empty hallways and its long line of rooms on each level. He wondered if it would look the same when he reached the end, or if there was something else that awaited him there.

He could not help but feel that he was spiraling deeper into an unknown abyss.

It was a long time before the stairs ended. He looked up. It was another hallway.

He squinted to the far end of it. There was a faint light that came from the ground and splayed itself against the gray wall.

He went to it and crouched down to inspect. There was a trapdoor on the ground, and light came from the four narrow strips of space between it and the cement floor. He pulled open the rusty metal latch easily and a loud creak echoed through the silent building.

Bright light blinded him and he switched off his night vision quickly.

More stairs led the way down. These were different from before. They ran in a spiral, skeletal and metal.

He took the first step down without hesitation.

\---

_They are running down the stairs with their hands gripped tightly together. It is supposed to be a serious scene, yet both of them can't stop themselves from laughing._

" _I'll laugh if you laugh," Xiao Zhan says as they make their way up the stairs for yet another take. "So you better not," he points a finger at Yi Bo, "or we have to do this scene again."_

_Sweat bead on their foreheads. Their costumes are thick and the sun is shining mercilessly on them as they run up and down this same flight of stairs too many times to count._

_Yi Bo rubs his thumb along the inner side of Xiao Zhan's wrist. "I won't, Zhan-ge," he says innocently._

_He is rewarded by the sight of Xiao Zhan shivering, his ears flushing red. None of the other crew members notices them, too busy with their own duties. Lan Wangji is supposed to hold Wei Wuxian's hand for this scene after all._

" _Wang Yi Bo," Xiao Zhan warns, looking at him from the corner of his eye. His ears are still red._

_Yi Bo only smiles cheekily, barely avoiding Xiao Zhan's smack on his shoulder._

_\---_

W1Bo-805 observed that this must have been a warehouse a long time ago. Spotlights hung from the vast ceiling where they cast vibrant light onto the space. He can see paintings being placed haphazardly on the floor or against the walls, their colors bright and vibrant.

When he reached the ground at the far corner of the warehouse, he observed the tiled floor was clean and free of the dust that should have been accumulating for years. If he had any emotions, he would feel guilty about trekking sand on it.

He went up to the pile of paintings closest to him. They were all paintings of scenery: the sea, the sky, forest and greenery, scenes of the kind of nature that was beautiful and gentle and only existed before the domes were created, and ceased to do so not long after. But the humans who had the chance to see them would have been long dead by now.

Could it be that this warehouse housed the paintings collected by a human before his or her death? W1Bo-805 scrutinized and sniffed at them. No, the paint was recent and the art were all in the same style.

That begged the question. Who was this elusive artist that was able to survive not only the extinction of mankind, but also exceed the average lifespan of a human many times over?

A painting stood on an easel in the centre of the large space, placed above the rest of the paintings littered around the room. A spotlight hung directly above it, casting it in a halo of light.

He walked towards it. It was a half-finished painting of a beach with mountains in the region. Two boys stand on opposite ends of the painting.

He leaned in closer to get a better look.

Something tickled at the back of his mind. They looked like-

"I see that you're admiring my painting."

W1Bo-805 snapped his head to the source of the voice.

A man stood behind him with his hands behind his back. Clad tightly in black, his silver hair glistened under the bright lights.

"Hello." He smiled. "I've been waiting for you."

\---

_Yi Bo trails his hand along the dip in Xiao Zhan's waist. "Do you believe in reincarnation?" he asks Xiao Zhan all of a sudden._

_Xiao Zhan chuckles_ , _propping himself up onto his elbow to look at him._ _"Who's the superstitious one now?"_

_Yi Bo scowls cutely._ “ _What if we never meet again in our_ _next lives?"_ _he asks, eyes wide in fear._

_Xiao Zhan pulls Yi Bo to him and_ _tightens his_ _arms around him in reassurance._ _"We will," he says simply._

" _But how can you be sure?" Yi Bo says against his chest._

_He kisses the top of Yi Bo_ ’ _s head. "Because I believe in both of us."_

_\---_

W1Bo-005's body moved on its own accord into a fighting stance. All androids had a defensive mechanism installed that gave them the capability to fight; only to be activated when there is a threat in close proximity. "Who are you?" he demanded.

The man blinked as if in surprise. He cocked his head to the side, unperturbed by W1Bo-805's defensiveness. "I'm XZ-1005. An android just like you."

He scanned XZ-1005. His system concluded he was an android, and of the same model as W1Bo-805 too.

He brought his fists down. Not a threat then. He took another look at his map to reconfirm the location of his target. It pointed exactly to XZ-1005.

Was it really an error in his tracking system? He took another look at him. And why was this android awake when millions of others across the globe had their systems shut down after the humans’ extinction?

"Was I your target by any chance?" XZ-1005 asked all of a sudden.

W1Bo-805 paused. "How did you know?" he finally said.

XZ-1005 only smiled. He tapped a finger to his lips in thought. "Do you have memories recently that you can't explain? Of someone else in a different life?"

W1Bo-805 did not answer him. He could feel his breaths becoming harsher.

XZ-1005 continued, unfazed by the lack of response. "Because I have them too." He looked at W1Bo-805. His gaze seemed to pierce through him. "The human you were made from, I have the memories of his lover. "

\---

_Xiao Zhan opens an eye blearily, only to see Yi Bo looking at him._

_He huffs, pressing a hand to Yi Bo's face. "How long have you been awake? Stop looking at me and go to sleep," he mumbles._

" _I don't know how I'd live without you," the words tumble out of Yi Bo_ _before Xiao Zhan could even finish his sentence, h_ _is eyes_ _both sincere and fearful_ _as they reflect Xiao Zhan’s own reflection back at him_ _._

_Xiao Zhan feels something flip inside of him, his chest blossoming with warmth._

_He smiles. "You don't have to worry about that," he cradles Yi Bo's face in his hands and pecks him on the lips. "Because you already have me."_

_\---_

It took a long moment for W1Bo-805 to process what he said. "You are saying that the memories I have had infiltrated my system and led to the error in my tracker?" he gathered. "That is impossible. Such an error had never existed in an android before."

XZ-1005 maintained his smile and said nothing. He waved a hand. "Come walk with me. Let me show you around."

He turned to walk away, before he paused and looked back at W1Bo-805 who had not moved from his spot.

"I'll explain it to you along the way," he said gently as if to reassure him, before going off without another glance.

With no other choice, W1Bo-805 followed after him.

They stepped out of the warehouse into a long corridor. There was a door on each side of it.

XZ-1005 turned to the room on the right and opened it.

W1Bo-805's eyes widened. The entire room was filled with plants. It was as if a forest on its own. Butterflies and birds flew above them, and the air did not have any of the sand or dust it always had. Instead, it smelled…it smelled _fresh_.

"How?" he asked. These were plants and creatures that had gone extinct before the humans did.

XZ-1005 smiled at the birds chirping in the trees above him. "I don't know either," he replied.

W1Bo-005 stepped further into the room. The ground was made of soil, and it was soft under his feet.

"I found this greenhouse one day while I was wandering around," XZ-1005 explained. "All the plants had withered by then. But I found a working generator, and I linked it up to the lights and used it to get clean water from the air. And somehow," he grinned brightly, "the plants begin the flourish and the insects and animals have returned."

W1Bo-805 sucked in a deep breath.

With his glittering silver hair, the shiny ornament adorned at his ear, and the dazzle of his smile under the bright light, XZ-1005 looked ethereal.

XZ-1005 continued walking further into the room, and this time W1Bo-805 followed after him almost eagerly as he took in the beautiful scenery.

"Have you been awake this entire time?" W1Bo-805 asked.

XZ-1005 paused. "Yes and no." He stuck out a finger, and a butterfly landed on it. "The humans shut me down before they went extinct." He looked to W1Bo-005, smiling wryly. "Memory interference they called it. I was the first and only android to have such an error. They could not find a solution for it and they decided to shut me down. When my system rebooted itself on its own," he looked to the far wall of the room and sighed, "I was all alone in the world."

W1Bo-805 did not know what to say to that, but XZ-1005 smiled at him as if he had never expected an answer anyway. He bent over and picked up two watering cans, filling them up to the top. He pressed one to W1Bo-805's chest, water sloshing up to wet his shirt.

W1Bo-805 frowned at him.

"Come," XZ-1005 said. "Help me water the plants."

He complied with XZ-1005's directions obediently. When XZ-1005 deemed W1Bo-805 sufficiently learned in the ways of watering plants, he went over to the other side of the room to do the same.

W1Bo-805 peeked at him from between the foliage. XZ-1005 tucked his hair behind his ear, laughing softly when a bird circled above him.

He swallowed heavily and returned his attention to the plants.

When they were done, XZ-1005 beckoned him towards the door. W1Bo-805 did so almost unwillingly. He threw a longing glance back to the room.

"You can come back here anytime," XZ-1005 said with an amused smile on his face.

XZ-1005 rubbed the soil and dirt from his boots onto the rug at the front of the door and W1Bo-805 did the same. A trickle of embarrassment ran through him as he thought about the sand and dirt he brought in earlier.

XZ-1005 walked across the corridor and opened the door to the opposite room. He held the door to let W1Bo-805 enter first.

If the room earlier had surprised him, this took his breath completely.

He walked slowly to the centre of the room, taking a huge turn. All the walls were completely covered with paintings. He looked to the high ceiling, where paintings had been fixed onto it as well. No area of empty wall was spared.

Each painting featured both the humans in W1Bo-805's memories. They looked exactly like the both of them. Or rather, they looked exactly like the two humans.

He went up close to one of them. His fingers reached to touch it before he stopped himself. "Who are they?" he whispered, almost reverently.

XZ-1005 stood next to him. "Xiao Zhan and Wang Yi Bo." He struck a glance at W1Bo-805. "But you knew that, didn't you?"

W1Bo-805 did not reply. His eyes never left the painting as he asked, "what happened to them?"

XZ-1005 paused. "They lived in the last dome to stand," he finally said.

W1Bo-805 looked away. Something tugged painfully at his chest. It was illogical and irrational, emotions were what the humans had, but somehow he felt himself mourning the lives of two humans he never knew.

But that was incorrect, he knew them, intimately, from the memories he had.

W1Bo-805 walked along the walls, looking carefully at each and every painting. Some were familiar to him and similar to the memories he had, others that were not, he imprinted them to his mind.

"All these paintings came from your memories?" he asked XZ-1005.

XZ-1005 nodded, smiling fondly at the painting in front of him. "I always had Xiao Zhan's memories ever since I was created." He chuckled mirthlessly to himself, "I guess that was the error. We androids were not supposed to have human emotions after all."

_An error._ But did it matter now? When they were built to serve the humans who were nothing but sand now?

W1Bo-1005 frowned in thought. "Did your system reboot itself because of a mission too? Did you try to..." he trailed off. _Did you try to find me? When my system was shut down?_

XZ-1005 shook his head. "No, my system was not shut down permanently. Androids are costly, the humans probably wanted to keep me asleep for a few years before attempting to fix me again when their technology has advanced." He smiled wryly. "None of them thought they would be gone by then."

He turned around in a circle, head titled upwards to the vast ceiling. "It was confusing, waking up to a world so different from the one I was in before. Even then, I could not understand the memories that came to me."

He looked at W1B-805 from the corner of his eye. "They do not come chronologically as you know. Painting them was a way for me to understand and piece them all together. Even now," he sighed, "I suspect I do not have all of Xiao Zhan's memories."

W1Bo-805 remained silent.

"The days went by like that, painting every memory that I had and reviving the little forest next door. And then suddenly," he looked at W1Bo-805 with bright eyes, "one day I had a mission."

XZ-1005 laughed and shook his head. "Guess what? My target was moving closer to me with each step. That's when I knew you were coming."

"How could you be sure it was me?" W1Bo-805 asked.

XZ-1005 cocked his head to the side. "Who else could it be?"

"So you have just been waiting for me the entire time? Believing I would come to find you someday?" The disapproval in W1Bo-805's voice was evident. If that was what XZ-1005 had done, it was highly illogical.

"I wasn't," XZ-1005 said. "I had gathered from Xiao Zhan's memories that Yi Bo's genes were used to build an android as well and I did consider searching for you. But even if I could find you and reboot your system on my own somehow, it was almost impossible that you would have the memories of the original human."

He smiled faintly at W1Bo-805. W1Bo-805 thought it looked sad. "I had became resigned to the fact that I would be alone in this world until my system finally broke down on its own."

W1Bo-805 frowned, "then why would I only have the memories of-" He stopped abruptly, unable to speak his name. It was as if speaking it out loud was an admission that he was no longer an android, but some hybrid between man and machine that could not be defined. An abnormality.

He continued quickly, "why would my system reboot itself and track you down now?"

XZ-1005 pretended not to notice the skip in his words. He walked slowly towards W1Bo-805, one step in front of the other as if he was walking on an invisible tight rope towards him. "It's just a guess, but the androids' protection system must have finally broken down since it was not maintained by the humans for decades. What had been repressed for so long…" he smiled knowingly, "began to return."

When XZ-1005 stopped in front of him. They were so close that W1Bo-805 could see the speckles of light in his eyes.

W1Bo-805 stepped away from him immediately. "I see," he said, looking to the side.

XZ-1005 chuckled. Sparing W1Bo-805, he walked away and halted by the door. "Come," he said. "I have one more place to show you."

W1Bo-805 followed him to the end of the hallway where it twisted into another corridor. A door stood at the end of it. It was made of strong metal, dulled over time but still well-kept with no trace of rust.

XZ-1005 opened it. A tunnel stretched dark and damp with no end in sight.

The thought that XZ-1005 might lock him in there crossed W1Bo-805's mind briefly, and so he waited for XZ-1005 to step in first before he did.

"It's a connector to the next building," XZ-1005 explained as he shut the door with a loud clank, descending them completely into darkness.

W1Bo-805 jolted up from the sound. He could hear XZ-1005 laughing softly beside him. "The door can be opened both ways," he reassured him.

W1Bo-805 scowled and said nothing. He did not think his thoughts could be so easily read.

W1Bo-805 switched on his night vision. The walkway was clean of any form of rubble or dirt. XZ-1005 had kept this place clean the entire time. It was a long walk, and the only sound that broke their silence was their footsteps echoing against the hard floor.

The tunnel was cold from being built so deep underneath the ground, and their breaths puffed out into the cool air in front of them. It calmed W1Bo-805, knowing that there was someone here in this dark vacuum beside him.

He realized he was afraid, afraid of the dark. But fear was an emotion, and emotions were what humans possessed. Emotions were irrational and illogical. Was the human whose genes he was built from afraid of the dark? Was his personality melding into his system? If so, what was W1Bo-805? 

Fear lanced through him at a sudden thought: Was he to be an eventual replacement for the human?

All of a sudden, XZ-1005 stuck out a hand in front of his chest and he jumped. "Be careful," XZ-1005 said, clearly trying his best to stop himself from laughing. "The stairs start here."

W1Bo-805 coughed awkwardly and said nothing.

The stairs went up in a winding direction, similar to the one W1Bo-805 had gone down into the warehouse. Light began to trickle in the higher they went. The familiar howl of the wind roared in the near distance as the steps gathered with sand.

When they reached the top, it opened out to a balcony overlooking the landscape. There was nothing around them but dunes of sand that looked like waves of the sea. The wind blew fiercely, blowing away sand at the peaks of the highest dunes where their orange tips melted into the sky until they became one and the same.

Sheltered overhead, the awning blocked out most of the harsh light. W1Bo-805 leaned against the stone balustrade and looked down. They were far from the ground, but W1Bo-805 was sure this tower would eventually sink into the sand one day too. Vanishing from sight, just like the humans and all the remnants of their achievements did.

XZ-1005 stood next to him. "Everything is gone now," he said. “Buried under all that sand. I wonder what they would say if they were still around to see this?” he asked W1Bo-805 cheekily.

W1Bo-805 could not return the same cheerfulness. "Who are we?" he asked, almost desperately. It felt like his life, or the closest thing he had to a human's life, depended on XZ-1005's answer.

XZ-1005 was not affronted by the lack of an answer to his question. He straightened up and looked at him steadily. "Who do you want to be?"

W1Bo-805 turned away from his piercing gaze. He tried to look to the far end of the landscape, hoping beyond hope that there might be something else there that was not miles after miles of sand and nothingness.

"We're not Wang Yi Bo or Xiao Zhan," he finally forced the names out. It felt like the heavy weight on his chest had been lifted slightly.

"No," XZ-1005 agreed. "We're not. But," he placed his hand on top of W1Bo-805's, "they're not us either."

His touch was soft and gentle. W1Bo-805 had never been touched like this before.

He felt something in his chest, something warm and stirring that he could not describe for he had never felt something like this before too. XZ-1005 made him feel too many things he never used to, or rather, made him began to feel. Like a human.

"We have all the time in the world," XZ-1005 said. It was both a reassurance and a comfort. They had all the time to figure who they were and who they could be to each other.

Xiao Zhan and Wang Yi Bo had brought them together, but XZ-1005 and W1Bo-805 did not need to be them. They were their own entities, even if they carried the essence of two humans long past within them forever.

Slowly, W1Bo-805 took XZ-1005's hand in his.

Hand in hand, they stood like this for a long time, gazing over the desolate land.

**Author's Note:**

> don't know if anyone noticed but the more W1Bo-805 interacted with XZ-1005, the more human he became! :D
> 
> this is a different writing style from how i usually write...please leave a comment! did you expect the plot twist? or was there even a plot twist in the first place ahahaha let me know guys i'm dying to know your thoughts on it :D
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/tandoubletan) & [tumblr](http://doubletan.tumblr.com/)


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